


Our Happy Ending (Is Built On Lies and Death)

by Mr_Elementle



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, added graphic depections of violence since it's coming eventually, but with mentions of murder, dadvid, hitman david - Freeform, idk how to tag this it's father son fluff but the bonding is over murder plans, yes it's hitman au and teacher au being a teacher doesn't pay great okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-08 12:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14694624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Elementle/pseuds/Mr_Elementle
Summary: (Hitman David AU, but also Teacher David AU)After Max's parents put him into an abusive foster home David decided to take matters into his own hands, He tried to go through the legal methods, but when they failed him he turned to Campbell for a favor.It's several months later and Max's parents are supposed to be dead, David and Max are supposed to be living in a nice house with David and his husband Jasper, and David is going to teach kindergarten fulltime and put his hitman days behind him. Except Jasper is away to often, David has to keep taking Jobs, Campbell is MIA, and Max's parents are very much alive and looking for him."Anybody who thinks that their happy ending came free, simply can not see the suffering on which the bricks are layed."





	1. Tout Commence Mal

"You need to stop leaving dead bodies in the Kitchen."

"Er... Uh yeah, sorry about that Max, just I was sorta tired when I came in last night, I took care of it first thing this morning." David sat down at the table next to his adopted son, pouring himself a bowl of cereal and joining him for breakfast.

"I don't care how "Tired" you are," Max took a long drink of his orange juice and slammed the glass back onto the table, "The landlady just has to walk in One time and we're screwed."

"Yeah I Know Max, I took care of it.” David hushed him with a tone of finality.

The two sat in silence for a few moments, only sound of their spoons clinking against their bowls as they both sat, too distracted by their own thoughts to do anything other than fidget with their utensils.

"Something on your mind Max?, You're normally more argumentative in the morning." David said, 

Max said nothing, turning slightly in his chair to face away from David,

"I mean if something's wrong you can tell me Max, you know that..." Max sulked further, pulling his legs into the chair and tucking his arms into the pockets of his hoodie. "Okay, father's intuition, something's got you feeling blue, Let me make you a cup of coffee and we can talk about." He got up and set about filling the coffee pot, barely hearing max mumble behind him that he wasn't his father.

A few minutes passed as the two just sat silently, David waiting for Max to open up, Max waiting for David to let it go, both goals equally absurd and unrealistic, yet each of them held some hope the other would see it their way. While it was only around 5 minutes that the two sat there in silence it felt like an entire season, like the trees and flowers outside had bloomed, flourished, and died, in the span of one strained silence. The sound of nothingness only broken by the clinking of silverware as David poured a cup of black coffee and set it in front of Max. Holding onto the back of his son's chair he moved around the small kitchen and sat in the next to Max. "So, once you get a little coffee in you, do you wanna talk about it...?" Max looked down into the cup, his face as unreadable as ever, only the slightest hints of ire in his countenance, which finally broke into worry as he took his first few sips of coffee.

"I saw my parents on TV, my Birth Parents..." Max's face never betrayed an emotion, but the way his voice broke, the fear and confusion in his voice were unmissable. 

David's eyes widened in shock, his fingers tapping at the table a bit quicker, a nervous quirk of his. 

Max's voice filled the kitchen again, this time more wavy, like he was on the brink of an infinity pool and the glass was cracking, Water and emotions pouring over the edge. "Campbell was supposed to take care of them, they're supposed to be dead, but there they are on TV this morning talking about some new celebrity client they picked up! If they're still alive then- then it's only a matter of time David!" Max was visibly breaking down now, his arms shaking, his lip curling and eyes watering. "I mean it's not like they want me back, but if they say they never signed those papers, and CPS looks into your fake custody papers-"

"max"

"I don't want to go back into the system"

"Max"

"Fuck I’d rather live at Camp Campbell with the Quartermaster than go back into the foster system."

"Max!" David snapped loudly, this was the 3rd time he had said the boy's name, but only the first he was heard over Max's histarics.

Max stopped talking and turned to David, his teary blue eyes meeting David's Determined Green ones. 

"Nobody is going to take you from me, Nobody is going to put back into the system." David leaned over in his chair to pull the boy into a hug, Max sniffling and sobbing into David's pajama shirt. "I don't know what happened with Mr. Campbell, but I'll call Gwen today and ask her to take care of it.

"Gwen? How is Gwen gonna help in this situation?" Max snapped, "Give them shitty fashion tips?"

"Hey young man, show your aunt some respect, she's just as much a part of this business as me and Jasper. Besides, Gwen is good at making it look natural, and we can't afford for it to be messy right now." David adjusted in his seat, the frazzled and overbearing father who couldn't understand his son replaced with a cold and calculating killer, ready to pass on his knowledge to his protégé. "Mr. Campbell should have taken care of it cleanly, but he didn't... for some reason..., Jasper is way too messy, he's better at getting information, and if i brought them out of the house there would be a trail to follow. No it has to be Gwen, Young adult dark skinned female, Your parents probably won't even notice that she isn't a part of the staff, it would still be best if she disguised her features a bit. Did your parents have any drug habits that you know of?"

"uh," Max was taken aback, still not used to the shift in character he saw in David anytime the conversation turned to murder. "I don't know, I mean I never saw anything other than drinking, but the only time I saw them was when they were drunk and angry. There might have been something I guess, dad was a bigshot lawyer and mom was an over botoxed trophy wife, so there was probably something..."

"Hm, Good point." David sat forward, holding his hands together under his chin. “Even if they don’t have any drug habits nobody would really question it if a bigshot lawyer and his trophy wife overdosed, Well maybe if they did it at the same time on the same drug, would two different drugs be better? different times is out of the question since this has to be a short term job, Gwen can't risk staying there too long. different drugs would leave more to track, so that might be more suspicious... Same time, same drug and people might think they were trying something new and it was to strong for them, yeah that's it, they needed something stronger and it was too much for them, happens all the time in Hollywood. I'll have to contact Dirty Kevin and see what kind of stuff rich jerks would try out to be adventurous and how much is a guaranteed lethal dose, Has to be a lethal dose, a hotshot would lead to too much investigation into the seller, accidents usually get a cursory glance and an autopsy and they move on.." David continued rambling on different scenarios and ideas

Max sat and stared at the man, a shiver running down his back as he mentally compared the David he first met at Camp Campbell, Childcare David, a happy-go-lucky fool who sings shitty campfire songs and tried to solve problems with hugs, to the David that sat at the table now, Hitman David, a cold calculating man who was willing to kill anyone who even dared cross him or his son. Max didn't know if he should feel honored, or terrified. He was sure David wouldn't hurt him, but in the few months since the end of camp that he had lived with David he had seen the depths of the man's depravity. The most chilling thing about it was how he always kept that same chipper tone of voice, and can-do smile, whether he was doing arts and crafts with campers, or rearranging somebody's internal organs. At times Max wondered if Daniel had actually poisoned himself on accident when they were all hypnotized, or if David had forced the liquid down his throat and then played innocent. 

"We'll work out the details tonight, I have to get ready for work" David said, snapping Max out of his thoughts as he got up from the table, "You got everything ready for another educational day at school Max?" he asked, popping right back into the chipper persona Max had first met at Camp Campbell so many years ago.

Max took a moment to adjust back to Childcare David, “Yeah I'm ready for another day in Lock-up." Max stood up, grabbing his bookbag off of the unused kitchen chair and slinging it over his shoulder.

"That's Fantastic!" David said, giving Max a big thumbs up, causing Max to groan.

The rest of the early morning went as usual, Max grabbing his phone and David grabbing his messenger bag, David driving to school at a safe reasonable speed and obeying all traffic laws and using his turn signals, and max playing an episode of the podcast they had been binging together off his phone's aux. The conversation of this morning left behind, yet still lingering in the back of their heads.

David pulled into the staff parking lot and backed in to his designated parking spot. "Now remember Max, the kindergarteners only have a half day today, so I'll be leaving at noon to go meet Gwen so we can talk about... that other stuff... then I'll be back here at 3 to pick you up, and if you're good today in school the three of us can go get ice cream this afternoon, Won't that be terrific?!"

"Oh, it will certainly be something." said Max, stepping out of the car and slamming the door, David following behind. 

The two walked into the side door of the school, splitting at the end of the hallway, with David reminding Max once more to be good and have a good day as he made his way to his kindergarten classroom to set up for the day's activity, and Max dismissing the reminder as he made his way to the 5th grade study hall to meet up with Neil and Nikki for a few minutes before homeroom.

Both of them putting up a façade of normalcy as they went about their day, Max barely paying attention in class but getting every question right (Much to Neil's constant annoyance), and David giving his all into teaching his students the colors of the rainbow (Including a song he wrote just for this lesson). They both felt that something life shattering sat just over the horizon, but neither one would ever let it show, both putting on their bravest face and acting like nothing at all had happened, and nothing at all was happening, pretending that life was exactly the same as it was yesterday and hoping nobody would suspect a thing. They both knew that their happy little life was build on lies and death, and that any slip could send them both tumbling to the bottom of a long jagged hole they've dug for themselves, Luckily for them living that kind of life makes you very good at pretending.


	2. Avant Que Le Jour Se Lève

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen waits for somebody at a café, While she waits she reminisces on how she got involved in this whole ordeal to begin with.

Gwen leaned back in the wicker chair, looking out over the side of restaurant patio at the busy street just at the bottom of the grassy artificial hill. She absentmindedly stirred another creamer into her cup of coffee, She looked down at the cup, its contents now almost white from all of the creamers she had poured in while lost in thought. She wasn't sure why she even asked for creamer, she always drank her coffee black. She had only ordered the cup so nobody would bother her while she waited for her redheaded co-worker. David... Maybe that was why she had ordered cream she thought to herself, remembering how he took his coffee. She had always teased that he didn't actually drink coffee, he had a cup of milk with a splash of coffee in it.

Gwen finally set the spoon down after the clinking of silver on glass caught up with her nerves. She set the coffee to the side, now positive she wasn't going to drink it. A few years ago it would have been entirely unlike her to waste a 5 dollar cup of coffee, but with here recent... Supplementary income, she liked to call it, it no longer seemed like that big a deal. That income had made a lot of changes in her life, she was living on her own, finishing her bachelor's degree, really the only thing that hadn't changed in her life was what she did over the summer, still toiling away as a camp counselor. David had told her that working at Camp Campbell was a pre-requisite of their other job, but she figured David just enjoyed her company over the summer since she never saw Jasper there.

Jasper... Gwen still didn't really get what was going on with him, pretty much everyone assumed he was dead from the story David told. Falling off a cliff and getting mauled by bears, it didn't seem like something that a 10 year old could survive, but according to Jasper he did. When Gwen looked at him, she was sometimes still haunted by the ghost of the expression she saw the day she first met him. David had brought her to his house after explaining the plan to steal Max. (She still didn't know why she agreed to it, she tells herself it was the money, but a part of her knows she couldn't live with herself knowing what kind of hell Max was in.) It almost didn't shock her that David killed people for Mr. Campbell, I mean he followed that man like a sick dog, and look at David, everybody in sleepy peaks was sure he was some kind of serial killer in his off-time.

~~~  
[David's house 2 year ago]

"You're serious?" Gwen set down her cup and stared the ginger directly in the eye "Like this isn't some weird set-up or reality show?"

"I'm serious. We need to do this... I need to do this, and it would be easier with your help." David sat up straighter and met Gwen's gaze head on, his voice lower and darker than Gwen had heard in the 4 years they spent as Co-Counselors. He glanced to the sandy haired man to his side. "Jasper... is already invested in this, but you don't have to be if you don't want to, you can go back home and we'll pretend this never happened. I know I trust you to keep quiet."

Gwen looked at David, Realization dawning on her face that this was real, that David, meek mild David who slept with a log, cried when he crushed a bug, and tried to solve stabbings with hugs...

He was asking her to help him kill someone.

Gwen took a short deep breath, trying to hold herself together in the absurdity of the situation, she glanced back and forth between the two men, her long time friend and some sandy blond stranger named Jasper, The name sounded familiar, but she wasn't exactly trying to place it at the moment. She held her hands tighter trying to stop the trembling, willing herself to speak as her body seemed to rebel against the terrible choice she was making.

"Who?"

David smiled slightly at her before regaining his serious composure, Throwing two folders down on the table, but it was Jasper who spoke as Gwen opened the folders to examine their contents

"Mr. and Mrs. Carlen, Ages 50 and 46 respectively, They've been involved in a foster care scam for 8 years now, Mostly selling kids and claiming them runaways, but it seems they'll do anything they're payed to." His voice was so deep, but the low rumble to it, the rasp when he spoke, like there was something wrong, Gwen couldn't help but wonder if the scars peaking above his shirtline had anything to do with it. "Their current deal as I understand it is that Max's parents are paying them to play warden, Moving the kid from one abusive home to the next to, quote unquote “Show him how good he had it with them". That's about all we know about Max's situation from the short call he was able to make to David, but from the recording I heard...” Jasper paused for moment, the dark look on his face telling Gwen more than words could have. "As for the Carlens, Well what don't we have on them, Human trafficking, abuses of every variety from physical to sexual, honestly this house must make hell seem like Disney World."

Gwen's hands shot up to clutch her mouth, her stomach turning inside out of itself like it was desperate to run from the room after what it just heard. The thought of all those children, The thought of Max, To many thoughts running through her head so she had to force them down so that she could talk. "So- so what do you want me to do about it, you guys seem like you've- You've done this before." Saying the words made it feel so much more real. “So why would you need to bring me it, doesn't that just make it more complicated?"

It was David who spoke up this time. "We have to stay clear, they already know me and Jasper, We tried to take Max the legal way, called in some connections and tried to foster or adopt him, but the Thanedar's connections were just more powerful. If we tried again under the table they'd know we were up to something, We need it to look like we're just a poor beguiled gay couple who took in a poor 3rd world orphan. The paperwork is all ready, if anybody official asks we have everything to prove that Max was born in an Indian slum and his parent's died shortly after his birth, and we adopted him through a world relief organization." David almost smiled at himself, the months of hard work and manipulation finally seeming to come together.

"You really went through all the trouble of being a gay couple just to try and steal Max? Wow Jasper must owe you some real big favors huh?" Gwen elbowed at Jasper, her joke clearly not landing.

"We are." Was all Jasper said, flashing a plain golden band on his right hand. "Davey doesn't wear his because he's afraid he'll lose it in the forest."

"Uh- Uh. But I mean like, uhm it's just that during the summe-" Gwen cut herself off before she could say anything incriminating, but David stepped up and did it for her.

"Yeah me and Bonquisha..." He rubbed the back of his head, “This summer was a whole big mess, Me as Jas got into a fight just before I left for camp and I kinda sorta split up maybe" David flustered his hands and started blushing, “Bu-but we made up and it's all good now, Right honey bear?" He looked up at Jasper, still standing behind his shoulder.

"..." His sombre face matching his silence before, "Of course my little lumberjack!" Gwen almost fell out her seat as the burly man's voice raised 3 whole octaves, and persona melted into a 90's schoolgirl crushing on some boyband, "I could never stay mad at the most radical dude in the world! Not even when we were kids" He put his hands around David's shoulders 

Gwen couldn't help but feel she had somehow won the universe's worst lottery, finding out David really was a gay serial killer, but knowing she could never tell anyone, it was like the universe threw one last scrap of trash at her before letting her finally get ahead. It was then that something in her head clicked

"Wait! Jasper? Like the dead kid Jasper???" Gwen squealed louder than she had intended.

"Dead..." Jasper and David said in unison.

"Yeah, David, a 10 year old doesn't fall off a cliff, then get mauled by bears, and walk away peachy keen!"

"I didn't exactly walk away peachy keen" Jasper said as he pulled down the front of his shirt, revealing that the small scars Gwen had seen earlier actually stretched all the way down to his navel. Gwen couldn't help but gasp.

"I just always assumed David was like, I don't know, in denial or something that his friend died. The story just sounded so- Ridiculous, Jasper going through all that and then Mr. Campbell just finds him and saves him and everythings just great? It just seemed-" 

Jasper cut Gwen off, "Saved, Heh. No I didn't die from the fall or the bears, When Cameron" his voice ran cold as he said the man's name "found me, well let's just say the only part of me that died that day was my childhood."

The look on Jasper's face was something that Gwen would never, Could never forget. It was so dark, so angry, so hurt. For a second, Gwen felt terrified, realizing that this was the face of a man that killed people, that this was probably the face he made when he killed them. For how many people was this terrifying hateful face the last thing they saw before they died? It was tense couple minutes before David spoke back up, snapping his boyfriend out of it,

"So, Gwen." David clasp his hands together and rested his chin on them, turning the topic back to the potential job, his voice just as chipper and excited as she had ever heard it. “Do you think you can do it? Can you Kill them?" The word kill fell from David's lips just as casually as any other, but to Gwen it felt like guillotine falling towards her.

"Wha-What would I have to do exactly?" Gwen's voice was shaking, she had been so sure she wanted to help, but when the words actually rang through the room, all of that courage seemed to melt.

It was Jasper again he spoke up, "It's pretty well known in the underground that the Carlen's like to test new shipments on their foster kids, They lost a couple to bad batches of coke and claimed that the kids must have got it off the street." he let the sentence fall.

David picked it up, "It's horrible, but we can use it to our advantage, we've got a special powder ready for you to take in, Mix it in their drink and it'll be as easy as walking out the door with Max, Jasper's coroner friend is set to come pick up the bodies and report three dead."

"And how am I supposed to get in to do that?"

"Already taken care of, Their regular social worker is supposed to show up Thursday, from the last few visits we observed she shows up, serves them each a shot of whiskey, takes her money, and leaves."

"And they aren't going to notice she's been replaced?" Gwen asked. Jasper slid a photo onto the table, for a second Gwen thought that it was a photo of her with blond hair, but looking closer she realized that the girl in the photo was ever so slightly different, a mole on her nose, lower cheeckbones, simple stuff that you only noticed up close.

"Not with a little stage make-up they won't." David smirked, "Me and Jas just have to make sure that she's... Otherwise occupied Thursday night." Gwen could feel something dark in his voice, darker than anything she would have thought David could be capable of. Everything seemed to simple, so foolproof, but the more Gwen thought on it, the more holes she was able to pick into the plan.

"But what about Max's parents? They may be dirtbags but you think they aren't gonna want their son's dead body? And I don't know if I can do this, I mean I care about the little shit and don't want him to be going through this, but to just kill two people? Even if they are monsters I don't know if I have it in me-"

David cut her off, "Cameron owes me a favor for keeping him out of jail this long, He'll take care of the Thanedars, and I'm not asking you to do this for free, I can pay you." David told her a number and Gwen was almost sure she would die right then and there, After this Job she wouldn't have to live with her parent's, She wouldn't have to take out a loan to get her Bachelor's, and if she spent wisely she wouldn't have to worry about rent for a nice while.

Damn, there went all the holes she picked into the plan.

And so with a few more details ironed out, the plan was set. Thursday night Maximilian Thanedar would be dead, and Maxwell Woods would be at home with his cool gay dads just like he was supposed to be.

Gwen was still shaking inside and out as she drove back to her parent's place, she came in quietly through the basement door and layed out on the futon she called home, She considered what she had agreed to do. Could she do something so unforgivable?

The things they've done are more unforgivable, she told herself. Gwen let her mind wander, gazing around the damp half finished basement, thinking on her first college experience and how miserable she was when her scholarship ran out, thinking on her parents constant nitpicking and whining about her lifestyle, and then finally to Max... Max, probably covered in scars and filth, Max pulled up into his favorite hoodie crying, If they even let him keep his hoodie. That thought stuck Gwen like a truck hitting a lightning bug, Max stuck in some hell hole without even his comfort hoodie. Jasper's words playing back in her head like a anxiety inducing playlist from hell.

Abuse

Physical

Human Trafficking

Sexual

Testing drugs on the kids

All of the things she had read in those folders mixing in her head the ingredients of a Molotov cocktail cake.

It was almost 4 in the morning when Gwen decided, Yes, she could do something that unforgivable. It was 4 in the morning when she decided that it would be completely forgivable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so wow, didn't expect to write this so soon Thank you all for your support for this story   
> :} Writing as i go instead of pre planning is really different, like this was just supposed to be a short intermission (A Gwentermission if you will), but it got 2 pages longer than chapter one and i decided to split it into 2 chapters, so next chapter we'll see how Max came to live with David, and where exactly was Jasper during Chapter 1. After that we'll pick back up where chapter 1 left off.

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly unbetaed, i did one run through for editing, but this is mostly being posted to gauge if anybody is interested in this story concept, I always oneshots or write the entire thing before splitting it into chapters, so i thought it would be interesting to do a "Write as I go" style story.


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